I had 2 classes that had open book exams. One was open book in the true meaning of it in that we had outlines, book, whatever we wanted so long as it wasnt a commercial outline. The other class was outline only and we had to credit everyone in the class who helped us formulate the outline. And we had to turn it in at the end of the exam.

The only open book exams I had during first year were in Property and I think that is standard across most schools just because of the amount of material covered during the course.

In ConLaw and CrimPro this year we had a mid term SC opinion paper, multiple choice exam, and take home final. I thought the take home finals were harder than the regular finals because he expected more research and better analysis for the obvious reasons.

Open book tests are deceptive. You'd think they would be easier because you have all your materials right there. However, if you don't know the stuff cold and use your outlines for anything more than the occasional reference, then you will not finish the exam and probably do very poorly.

JohnnyAwesome

My torts exam is multpile choice and essay - closed bookMy property is m/c and essay, the m/c portion is closed, the essay is limited open, meaning casebook, your outlines or notes, nothing commercial, nothing you didn't significantly contribute to the creation of. CivPro is closed with the exception of our rules book, which is printed on every other page, and we can write whatever we want in the book as long as it doesn't exceed the margins or make the book thicker then it should be.

Open book tests are deceptive. You'd think they would be easier because you have all your materials right there. However, if you don't know the stuff cold and use your outlines for anything more than the occasional reference, then you will not finish the exam and probably do very poorly.

Truer words were never spoken. I study for open-book exams in the exact same way as I study for closed-book exams. It is simply unrealistic to believe that you will have all of the time in the world to consult your materials, read and take notes on the question(s), sketch a rough skeletal outline, and then write the actual answer(s).

Howver, it is for this exact same reason that there is a bright side to open-book exams: people typically understimate them, meaning that if you yourself don't do so, you can, and probably will, perform better than they.

Open book tests are deceptive. You'd think they would be easier because you have all your materials right there. However, if you don't know the stuff cold and use your outlines for anything more than the occasional reference, then you will not finish the exam and probably do very poorly.

I'm not at a T4 school, but I just wanted to echo this comment. Open book is good for some details, but if you think about it, you're not going to be able to read over pages of material during an exam anyway. You still have to know the material well enough going into the exam; I've found that the open book helps with smoothing out some details.